How Baylor is stewarding the natural resources God’s given us
As Christians, we’re called to be stewards of God’s creation. We’re also proud of the beautiful campus we’ve been blessed with. With those things in mind, Baylor aims to take good care of all that we’ve been given — including our natural resources.
In 2009, Baylor became the first university in Texas to earn LEED certification for an existing building, an honor given to facilities that meet a strict standard of environmental friendliness. In recent years, Truett Seminary’s Baugh-Reynolds Campus, the Highers Athletics Complex/Simpson Center, Allison Indoor Practice Facility and the Foster Campus for Business and Innovation have all been LEED certified.
The dining halls at Baylor have also made concerted efforts to “go green” through such means as trayless dining and reusable to-go boxes. They have also gone to increasingly great lengths to serve locally grown, organic, and vegan items, and to make sure unused food isn’t wasted; in the last year, Baylor’s Campus Kitchen student organization was able to take 4.3 tons of food from residential dining facilities and redistribute it to local nonprofits, providing meals for those in need.
The most impactful effort has been Baylor’s recycling program, which includes the recycling cans you see scattered across campus, the Move In recycling and Move Out donation drive, and volunteers at tailgating events. On a campus with more than 16,000 students and 2,500 faculty and staff, the little things we do go a long way. In 2015, the university recycled 460 tons of material through these programs — up more than 300% in the last 10 years.
Yet even with all these programs’ successes, Baylor Sustainability isn’t satisfied. By 2020, their 5-year plan aims to have achieved:
- 20% locally sourced food in dining halls;
- 30% waste diversion rate;
- 17% reduction in water usage; and
- 15% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Sic ’em, Baylor Sustainability!
You might also like:
* April and May busy months for green-minded efforts on campus (May 2012)
* State, national honors honor Baylor’s effort to ‘go green’ (July 2010)
* Students lead drive to make Move-In more green (Sept. 2009)